On 25 September, Microsoft announced what it calls the new Copilot. I've read through it with one question in mind: what changes for those of us who design and build business apps on Dynamics 365, Dataverse and Power Platform?
The short answer is quite a lot. Most of it isn't about new buttons, though. It's about who builds things, where agents run, and how the bill gets paid.
What Microsoft actually announced
The new Copilot is organised around three spaces. Home brings Chat and Cowork together in one central place, and Microsoft is also building Word, Excel and PowerPoint directly into Copilot. Code lets users build apps and automations in natural language. It's based on the same technology as GitHub Copilot and is aimed at helping non-developers create their own solutions inside their organisation's environment. Autopilot is the newest piece. It was previously called Scout, and it's an always-on personal agent that lives in its own tab in the Copilot app. New Microsoft Copilot Brings Home, Code, and Autopilot Together - Source EMEA +2
Under the hood, Microsoft is improving Copilot's grounding with Fabric IQ, Work IQ and a new Plugin Registry so it can draw more fully on organisational data, processes and applications. microsoft
Code: the citizen-developer story gets a new front door
For years, "build it yourself" in the Microsoft world meant Power Apps and Power Automate. Code now offers a second route, starting from a sentence instead of a canvas.
The part I'd pay most attention to is hosting. Microsoft is introducing Copilot Managed Runtime, which hosts code inside a Microsoft 365 environment. It will support apps built in Cowork, Code and Copilot Studio, and it's also being opened to third-party and professional developers. channellife
For CRM teams, I see three practical questions:
- Where does the data live? An app built in Code still needs a system of record. For customer data, that should still be Dataverse, not a new spreadsheet hidden behind a nice UI.
- Who governs it? Your Power Platform CoE, environment strategy and DLP policies were built for makers. You'll want the same discipline here before people start shipping apps from chat.
- Who maintains it? "Anyone can build" also means anyone can leave the company. Ownership and ALM don't go away because the code was generated.
Autopilot: an agent with its own identity
This is the change I think matters most for architects. Microsoft says Autopilot is cloud-hosted and operates with its own identity, memory, computer and workspace inside a customer tenant. channellife
An agent with its own identity is an agent that needs permissions. If it can work across your tenant while nobody is watching, then Dataverse security roles, business units, field-level security and column-level access stop being "nice to have". They become the actual guardrails. I covered this in an earlier post on what a Copilot agent can actually see. Autopilot makes that question more urgent, not less.
It's also why data quality matters. An always-on agent working from duplicate accounts and stale opportunities will do the wrong thing confidently and quickly.
The billing change is a design decision
A user subscription licence covers Copilot in Chat, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, while usage-based billing applies to Cowork, Code, Autopilot and long-running agentic capabilities. Microsoft's admin documentation describes Copilot Credits as a common currency for eligible services billed by usage. technobezzdev
For consultants, that means estimating agent usage becomes part of the solution design, the same way we already think about API limits and Dataverse capacity. "Should this be a plugin, a flow or an agent?" now has a cost dimension as well as a technical one.
When can you use it?
Not quite yet for most people. Home and Code will reach testers through the Frontier program in the coming weeks, while Autopilot moves into private preview at the end of this month. Frontier requires a Microsoft Copilot licence and has to be switched on by an IT admin. Microsoft has also previewed things still to come, including Today in Home and @Copilot in Teams. Microsoft Adds Home, Code and Autopilot to Copilot +2
My take
For years the question was "how do I add AI to my CRM?" With this release, Microsoft is turning that around. Copilot becomes the place where work starts, and the CRM becomes one of the systems it reaches into.
That doesn't make Dynamics 365 less important. It makes the foundations more important: clean data, a sensible security model, proper ALM and governance that keeps up with the people now able to build. Those are the things to get right before Code and Autopilot reach your tenant.
I'll be testing these as they become available and writing up what holds up in real projects. If you're planning a Copilot or agent rollout on Dynamics 365 and want a second pair of eyes, get in touch.
Sources:
- New Microsoft Copilot Brings Home, Code, and Autopilot Together – Microsoft Source EMEA
- Microsoft adds Copilot Home, Code & Autopilot tools – ChannelLife
- Microsoft Adds Home, Code and Autopilot to Copilot – Technobezz
- The new Copilot: Home, Code, Autopilot and interface changes – Super Simple 365
- The new Microsoft Copilot explained – DEV Community
Thanks for reading this article. Hope this Article will help you. Cheers!!!
#Dynamics365 #PowerPlatform #MicrosoftCopilot #DynamicsCRM #CopilotStudio #Dataverse #AIDeveloper #DynamicsAIEngineer #HireAIEngineer #AIEngineer #D365Consultant #CRMDeveloper #AIAgents #MSDyn365
No comments:
Post a Comment